Skill oddness.

[mlooney]

Army - Cavalry. Shouldn't "Turret" be "heavy weapon (vehicle)" ?
Agent - Event table 10, Consider adding "heavy weapon(vehicle)" or replacing "Turret" with it.
Citizen - Gun Combat really should be a possible skill if "Gun" is going to be the major material benefit. Yes, I know that a rank 6 Colonist gets it, but that's not real likely.

I've restarted my "Nit Picker's Guide to Mongoose Traveller" to cover this editon, for what it's worth. It can be found starting here

 

[-Daniel-]

Citizen - Gun Combat really should be a possible skill if "Gun" is going to be the major material benefit. Yes, I know that a rank 6 Colonist gets it, but that's not real likely.

I have noticed that 1st edition and so far 2nd edition seems to reward career jumping. So for example, Army 1 term, Citizen 2 terms (Colonist) would make a better colonist than 3 terms colonist. When I realized this, some of the skill oddities didn't seem so bad. Of course the other two you listed are valid. :wink:

One I would like to see used more is "Drive or Flyer". With the clearly large number of Air Rafts it would seem like more people would know how to "fly" them. Just a thought.

 

[haveahappy]

One I would like to see used more is "Drive or Flyer". With the clearly large number of Air Rafts it would seem like more people would know how to "fly" them. Just a thought.

One thing that many "modern" *makes finger quote gesture* games do is say that certain things are just common knowledge. Like being able to drive a car in the year 2015. It's more unusual for someone to NOT know than it being some special skill only gleaned from specialist professions......

Maybe this could be represented by certain skills deemed "common knowledge" in the Imperium having only a -1 for rolling unskilled? Or no penalty at all?

 

[AndrewW]

One thing that many "modern" *makes finger quote gesture* games do is say that certain things are just common knowledge. Like being able to drive a car in the year 2015. It's more unusual for someone to NOT know than it being some special skill only gleaned from specialist professions.....

Not in some areas.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Some cities in the far future might have mega busses that haul people around. And monorails. So people don't drive themselves. Most cars don't have a driver seat probably. Even in a Mad Max paradise, most people would have a working car to know how to drive one.

Heck, not everyone has a starship with air-raft or hover-car they've had much practice with. See Ripley from ALIEN. Deckards are rare in sci-fi.

 

[haveahappy]

Heck, not everyone has a starship with air-raft or hover-car they've had much practice with. See Ripley from ALIEN. Deckards are rare in sci-fi.

It's also an opportunity for dramatic moments.

"You know how to drive this thing?"

"Erm.... yeeesss... of course I do..."

 

[mlooney]

I should have been a little more clear.

The "Turret" skill in the case of the Army Cav career path is clearly the *wrong skill* and it's unlikely to be right in the case of the agent.

Not having Gun combat is just weird, given that that you have a 1 in 6 chance of getting a gun as a mustering out benefit as a "citizen", it's not "wrong" as such. None of which has any thing to do with how common some skills are.

 

[-Daniel-]

Reading these comments makes me want to be clear in what I was thinking. I am not saying every character should come loaded with Fly (Grav)-1. What I am saying is, when I saw the one place where the skill on the chart read "Drive or Flyer" I realized it might make sense in a few more of the career charts. Once a person rolls that skill slot, they could elect to take fly or drive. But it is ok for me to get a character who can't fly an air raft.

On a side note, I have a friend who made it to almost 40 before he learned to drive a car. He was born and raised in NYNY. He only learned to drive because his company transferred him out to California. So even in our time I could see someone who never "rolled" drive on the chart. :wink:

 

[mlooney]

Reading these comments makes me want to be clear in what I was thinking. I am not saying every character should come loaded with Fly (Grav)-1. What I am saying is, when I saw the one place where the skill on the chart read "Drive or Flyer" I realized it might make sense in a few more of the career charts. Once a person rolls that skill slot, they could elect to take fly or drive. But it is ok for me to get a character who can't fly an air raft.

Page 9. Back ground skills. Any one that wants to can learn to fly or to drive, given that you always get at least one background skill. If you have average EDU you can learn to do both. Based off what I learned watching traffic when I spent a year as bike rider (instead of being a car driver), most people *think* they have drive 2, maybe 3, but really have 0, with a rare 1. Stigs are rare.

 

[-Daniel-]

Page 9. Back ground skills. Any one that wants to can learn to fly or to drive, given that you always get at least one background skill. If you have average EDU you can learn to do both.

You are correct, I missed they added flyer to the background skill options. Good call-out.

So many cool tweaks for me to absorb. :mrgreen:

 

[Cugel]

And computer use: it took us a bit to determine that Electronics subsumed computer use, so had to retcon everyone having at least a level 0 in it (since no one had a "barbarian" character concept).

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

(deleted and moved to the Skills and Task section)